MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Fall Winter 2019

123 DESIGN words :: Feet Banks The old saying is, “Life’s a bitch and then you die.” But for a lot of us, there is a middle part to the story: we get jobs, we have families, we use the money from the jobs to pay for shred trips and, at some point, most of us end up saying something along the lines of, “We can land a robot on Mars, or watch Encino Man on a computer that I carry in my pocket, but no one has invented a comfortable ski boot that won’t give me frostbite while I’m waiting for this goddamn chairlift to open?! I’m too old for this sh*t.” Good news grouchy pants, while far too many ski boots still feel like medieval torture devices by the end of the day, boot heaters do exist—and the tech just got a lot better. “Once you get ‘em, you never go back,” says Chris Clark, senior boot master at Surefoot Whistler, where he sees “many hundred” pairs of heated boot liners go out the door each year. For years, the system involved a stick- on element placed under the toes, but Surefoot’s latest design integrates the heater directly into the top of the toecap. “The veins that return your blood to your heart run over the top of your toes,” Clark says, “and the skin is not as thick up there so it’s a more efficient way to warm.” This translates to longer battery life, something you can now monitor via a dedicated smartphone app rather than performing a high-level yoga manoeuvre to stretch down and tinker with a battery clipped to your powerstrap. “The app shows individual battery levels for each of your feet,” Clark says, “and there are ten heat settings as opposed to three on the old system. It makes it a lot easier to power down when you go in for lunch and saves power in the long run.” Of course, there’s more to life than skiing—there’s also snowboarding. And while standard stick-on ski boot systems can work with snowboard boots, most opt for a heated sock. “The sock is diverse,” says born-and-raised Whistler skier Ian Morrison, of FanatykCo Ski & Cycle, Whistler’s long-time foot heating experts. “You can use it snowboarding, ice fishing, hunting, snowmobiling, ice skating or pretty much anything other than swimming. The thermic sock also has a Bluetooth app.” Morrison, an ex-ski racer, rocks the old-school, stick-on three-level boot heaters and say they are the best thing he’s ever put in his boots, but not everyone agrees. “Toughen up,” says Andrew Bradley, die-hard skier and longtime Whistler local. “It’s not like we’re in the high Arctic. If you have a pair of wool socks and your feet are still cold it means you’re not really making the most of your ski day. Go harder.” And what about the children—those who complain the most and the loudest about frozen toes? Everyone agrees that the stick-on, non-Bluetooth heaters can be applied to kids’ sizes. But there is always the danger that doing so denies the next generation of shredders one of the greatest lessons of childhood: “Sorry kid, life’s a bitch and then you die. One more lap off the Peak and we’ll go for hot chocolate.” TOASTY TOES Are heated ski and snowboard boots the greatest thing since two-ply toilet paper, or further evidence of our cultural decline into pampered baby-people? The earliest ski pole was found in Sweden, dating back to 3623 B.C. The earliest depiction of a man with a ski pole is from a cave painting in Norway, dated at 4000 B.C. Cold morning hikes just got better. GUY FATTAL